


What the Water Gave Me

by eggs_and_toast



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Curses, F/M, Lighthouse, Magic, Merpeople, Slow Build, contains manga spoilers, levihan - Freeform, plot focus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-03 14:32:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2854292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggs_and_toast/pseuds/eggs_and_toast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The walled, coastal city of Sina keeps to itself. People rarely get to enter and dwell within the city, and citizens rarely get to leave it. Hanji's family made it outside of the walls, but now she's back after inheriting a lighthouse after the previous keeper, a distant relative, passed away. However, she didn’t just inherit a lighthouse, she also inherited something else…</p><p>A hundred years ago, the island city nation of Shiganshina was at the height of its commerce and architectural beauty, but greed took over, and it led to the island sinking beneath the sea. What residents weren’t killed, were changed into half human, half fish hybrids. Levi, a former Captain of the Royal Guard, thought self-exile out in the depths of the ocean was the way to atone for his mistakes, but something awakes him and reminds him of the truth: Shiganshina was cursed, and curses don’t end in happiness…</p><p>(In short, a Levihan merpeople AU.)</p><p>Probably Permanent Hiatus, sorry guys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for something radically different from Allowance. ;)
> 
> Trigger warnings: I can't be sure of what to really tag for just yet so here is a mild prediction: violence, death, character death, abuse/bullying, possible suicide mentions, generally not good for anyone who is sensitive to imagery of dark, deep places like ocean depths, descriptions of body horror. Also contains an occasional bad word, which more than likely came out of Levi's mouth.
> 
> Pairing warnings: There aren't many side pairings but you'll note that I haven't tagged any because I'd rather not take away any of the fun, so I hope you'll keep an open mind, though they aren't anything too wildly dramatic.

The first pulse felt like a tickle. He opened his eyes and inhaled deeply through his gills, felt the blood flow quicken in his veins. The second pulse was timed with his heartbeat, a feeling he had forgotten. He blinked his eyes again, finally registering that he had been drifting face down, surrounded by the darkness of the ocean.

There was a faint light emitted by his dark, fish-like tail, but the soft glow faded as he bent his head down to look at it. Another pulse echoed through his body, capturing his attention. He rolled over while twisting and stretching muscles that hadn’t moved in a while. It felt good.

The water’s surface, much brighter than the dark depths he had previously been staring at, wasn’t too far away. As an invisible pulse rippled through him again, he saw an elongated oval shape on the surface off to his left, a black spot against a neverending expanse of pale white light. The shape felt familiar, and he tried to remember the significance of it.

 _‘A boat,’_  he thought, through the hazy clouds of his mind.

Another vibration traveled through his body, but it was followed closely by another, and another, until there was a repetitive throbbing. The boat had begun to move away, but another dark shape was now visible above him. This one was in the water, because it was encased in a swarm of bubbles and was growing larger as it sank.

Curious, he swam towards the sinking object. The pulse grew faster, but instead of distracting him, he felt his mind grow clearer. When he reached the object, he finally recognized that it was a human; their hands and feet were bound, and as he turned them over, he saw an unconscious face under a swirling mass of dark hair.

The pulsing stopped when he grabbed the person, but now Levi only had one thought—humans couldn’t breathe underwater.

Without hesitating, he gave a mighty swing of his tail and shot towards the water’s surface, arms wrapped around the person’s waist. When their heads broke the surface, Levi coughed and sputtered for a few minutes until he finally sucked air into his lungs through his mouth instead of his gills. Above him, the moon was just coming out of its full phase, but it felt like broad daylight to Levi, and he blinked against its light in order to inspect his burden.

He wasn’t sure if it was a man or a woman. The face could have been feminine, but their body was lean and all muscle and bone without curves. They wore brown trousers and a white, loose-fitting tunic. After a larger swell almost dunked them underwater again, Levi noticed that the person wasn’t breathing.

 _‘That’s not good, I am **not** fit for rescue breathing anymore,’_  he thought, turning the person around so that they faced away from him. He wrapped his arms around their waist again, just under their ribs, while pumping his tail to keep them above water. ‘ _This isn’t proper, but it’s all I can do.’_

Levi pulled his arms in, giving the person a quick heave while being careful not to do it too hard. The person gagged and coughed up water on his first try, and he was relieved that they didn’t vomit. Instead, the person began to breathe noisily through their mouth. Levi frowned when they remained unconscious.

 _‘A head injury? I can’t tell like this,’_  he thought, as another swell nearly overtook them again.

With some clumsy maneuvering, Levi looped the person’s arms around his neck, thankful that he had an alternative method of breathing since the arms blocked the gills on the sides of his neck. After an agonizingly slow, careful swim to the shoreline in the distance, Levi was able to haul the person onto a sandy beach. He even put in the extra effort to drag them closer to the line of trees so that the tide wouldn’t sweep the poor sod back into the ocean.

‘ _This better not be serious,’_  Levi thought, sitting up best he could on the sand and putting the person’s head across his bare waist.

 

He carefully ran his hands over the person’s skull, making sure to not snag his fingers in the tangled hair and tug on it. He noticed that, even in the moonlight, their tan skin was a stark contrast to Levi’s own pale flesh. As his fingers brushed gently across a swollen area near the left ear, the person’s eyelids fluttered and they moaned softly in pain.

Levi hummed in approval; it didn’t seem to be too serious. The skin wasn’t even split. He held their head up with his left hand, and moved his right so that it hovered over the bump. Then, he closed his eyes, and focused.

 _‘Healing magic isn’t my forte, but this should be enough.’_  Energy thrummed through him towards his right hand, and for a moment, Levi felt like his old self again.  He shut that feeling out the moment he felt it, though, and opened his eyes. His hand was glowing blue, with little swirls of white light seeping into the person’s head.

After a moment, there was a vague sensation of having healed whatever needed healing — Levi could only call it “instinct” at his level of healing ability — so he laid the person’s head down. After a moment of consideration, he shifted them around so that he could inspect their chest, and with as gentle a touch as he could muster, he pressed here and there while feeling for vibrations in the breathing from excess water in the lungs.

 _‘Ah. Female.’_  The confirmation crossed the back of his mind after discovering breasts held in place by a tight undergarment. Just to make sure, Levi focused his magic again over the chest until he felt that same “healed” feeling. The woman still didn’t wake, but she appeared to be in better comfort, if not just cold, but Levi wasn’t about to strip her or make a fire.

 _‘It’s warm out and she’ll wake soon, she’ll be fine,’_ he reasoned, putting his hands on her head and shoulders to move her off his lap.

Her eyelids fluttered again, and for a moment Levi froze, feeling very much aware of his strange appearance and the fish tail that extended below his hips. Her eyes opened, and made contact with his.

“Shit.” The word came of his mouth in a rough, cracked sound.

The woman didn’t seem to be fully conscious, but a corner of her mouth twitched into a grin before her eyes slid shut again.

Levi put her back on the sand, dragged himself back into the water, and retreated into the ocean without another glance.

 

\-- Earlier that Day--

 

Zoë Hanji pushed her glasses back up her nose and shielded her eyes against the sun high up in the sky.

 _‘Just about midday,’_  she thought, looking back down at the scenery behind the horse-drawn wagon she rode in.

It was mostly flat farmland, with workers diligently tending crops of vegetables and grains on either side of the dirt road. Every now and then, the wagon would pass a small cluster of farmhouses, with chickens scattering and children chasing after the wagon.

Straight down the road behind the wagon, still visible, was a hundred-foot stone wall that stretched for miles to the north and south. Hanji turned around in her seat at the front of the wagon, and a similar wall of equal height loomed over her as the wagon approached it.

 _‘Sina,’_  she thought, grimacing. _‘I spent most of my early childhood wanting out of those walls, only to wind up back in them.’_

“I hope you get kicked right back out the city,” the wagon driver grumbled. A fleshy, balding merchant, he had reluctantly given Hanji a ride to Sina’s inner wall, which saved her a few hours’ walk.

“If they _do_ kick me out, Reeves, that means I’ll be free to torment you some more,” Hanji told him, a cheerful threat that Reeves knew she would make good on.

“Don’t even know how you managed to leave in the first place,” he said, changing the subject to a safer topic while avoiding her eyes. “It’s as hard to get out the city as it is to get in.”

Sina was a seaside city. The walls formed a half circle with the coast, and there was only one gate in the outer wall. In theory, a person could go to either end of the wall and paddle a boat around it, but the northern end was heavily watched and the south end held treacherous rocks and sea beasts that thrived in the warmer waters.

“My family sacrificed a good deal,” Hanji admitted. “When we did leave, we had nothing, no food, no money, just the clothes we were wearing that day.”

It was cheaper for a Sina citizen to discard citizenship than for an outsider to gain it, but many Sina citizens couldn’t afford the high price. Even if they could, they didn’t want to, because it would mean starting over in the world that they were taught to fear. But to an outsider, residency within the walls meant a steady, easier living in high society, though that part was mostly illusion.

In reality, there was an obvious divide between the upper and lower classes, and if a person wasn’t born a noble or the heir to a successful business, the only other way to enter the ranks of “high society” was by joining the Sina Guard, the law-keepers of the city and wall patrolmen.

Hanji would bet her few belongings that the reason Reeves had become a merchant, a liaison between the outside world and Sina, was so that he could obtain citizenship more easily.

“Are they even gonna let you back in?” Reeves asked. “Them soldiers make it a game of tossing people on their literal backsides, y’know.”

“I’ve already been cleared at the outer wall,” she replied. _‘But that doesn’t mean they won’t try to put me off.’_

Hanji eyed the soldiers’ station outside the gate. As the wagon approached, a couple of men and women in forest green jackets, crisp, white pants, and knee-high leather boots exited the wooden station. The huge, ten-foot iron gate was opened just enough to let a person walk under, but there were several soldiers standing guard on either side.

“Reeves! You’re a day early for market, aren’t you?” a soldier said, as the wagon halted.

“Yes, well, I have some business to, ah, take care of, so I came a bit early,” Reeves replied, ignoring Hanji’s presence beside him and handing over his merchant’s paperwork to the soldier.

As other soldiers began to inspect his cargo, Hanji went ahead and hopped down from the wagon. She wasn’t tall, but she wasn’t short either, and they would have ordered her down anyway.

 _‘The key is to present yourself with confidence, but not overly so,’_  she thought, approaching a soldier with her own paperwork. “I’m Zoë Hanji,” she said, keeping her voice steady and to the point. “I received a letter of inheritance about a week ago, and I’m here to claim it and the citizenship that comes with it.”

The soldier tried to hide his surprise with a sneer as he took her paperwork, a letter from a forgotten uncle on her mother’s side that detailed the inheritance. It was made out to the youngest living relative of the Guerra family tree, which meant Hanji since her mother was the only other Guerra now living.

“You inherited the lighthouse?” The soldier couldn’t hide his surprise this time, and another soldier came over to have a look. “Oh right, the old keeper just died recently, didn’t he? Old age, in his sleep, I heard.”

“Yes,” Hanji said, watching Reeves enter the gate without her. “I am to be the new lighthouse keeper, as stated in the letter. It’s been signed by the appropriate authorities, as you can see.”

“Right, well, let me get Captain McGowan to look this over,” the soldier said, and made to walk back to the station.

“It’s already been approved by a Captain,” Hanji said impatiently, her calm demeanor slipping as she reached out to grab the soldier’s shoulder. “Look, it’s the paper under the letter, Captain Eibringer. I’ve already waited two full days to get approval to enter the city, and Sina’s been without a lighthouse for almost two weeks now.”

The soldier, a youth who couldn’t have been older than Hanji, swatted her hand away. “Look, mister, we don’t like outsiders, don’t trust ‘em one bit! I gotta go check to make sure you didn’t forge the Captain’s signature!”

Hanji clenched her teeth but took her hand back to push back her disheveled bangs, for the other soldier had stepped closer when she touched the other’s shoulder. She walked over to her abandoned belongings, all crammed into a single, large pack that had been dropped by the gate without care. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself.

 _‘You knew it’d be like this,’_  she told herself. _‘It would’ve taken even longer to get this far if that vase hadn’t fallen over.’_

Captain Eibringer had been fully prepared to dilly dally on sending a courier to the inner wall to get her citizenship and inheritance confirmed. Had he succeeded, Hanji would have been forced to wait for at least a week. However, in his office was a large vase with a nice, potted lily in it. For no apparent reason, it had fallen off the stand it sat on and broke, revealing a stash of coins that had been buried in the dirt.

The Captain had hastened to clean the mess and to hide it, making Hanji believe that the coins were pilfered from the merchants’ fees for entering Sina. He sent the courier much quicker after that, though nothing could be done about the time it would take for the courier to leave and return.

 _‘Eibringer didn’t notice, but that was very close,’_ Hanji thought, watching the soldier with her paperwork exit the station. _‘I never wanted to see Sina’s walls again, but this lighthouse is my only lead to solving this problem of mine.’_

“The signature has been approved; you can enter the city now,” the soldier drawled, handing Hanji the papers. “Captain McGowan would like to remind you that as the owner of a municipal building, you cannot discard your citizenship without transferring ownership of that building, and you will still have to pay the fee.”

“And I can’t transfer ownership anyway because the will says I’m stuck with it until _I_ die and someone else inherits it, I know already,” Hanji said, taking her papers. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some keys to collect and a beacon to learn how to light by nightfall.”

She stowed her papers back into the pocket of her pants, hauled her pack onto her back with ease, and strode under the gate into the city. Just past the gate was a condensed mass of humanity, and the stench to back it up since the back fringe of the city lacked efficient sewage drains.

 _‘Ugh, even Ragako’s back alleys smelled better,’_  Hanji cringed, pushing onward to reach the main streets of Sina’s residential district.

The city was elevated near the center, not by much, but with enough height that the enclosed area on top known as Mitras could be seen above the houses below it. Mitras was where the most elite of the citizens, commonly referred to as nobles, resided, as well as Sina’s governor. On the other side of the hill was the market district, containing businesses, a shipyard, and docks. A couple days northeast of Sina was Trost, a large city that sat on a river. Boats came down the river, hit the ocean, and made their way to Sina for trade, but like the merchants who came via wagon, they were watched carefully.

Hanji spent most of the afternoon arguing with more authorities and trying very hard to keep her temper in check. She was relieved that no other incident similar to Captain Eibringer’s vase occurred, but by the time she finally had the lighthouse’s keys in her possession, the sun was beginning to approach the ocean’s horizon, her patience was used up, and her stomach was roaring hungry. She caved in and bought a sandwich from a stall just before they closed up as she continued to make her way towards the south end of the city.

 _‘Gonna have to pinch my pennies even more,_ ’ Hanji sighed, making quick work of the sandwich. ‘ _Municipal owners get a payment from the city each month, but it isn’t much.’_

The lighthouse itself was outside the inner wall. Unlike the outer wall, the inner one had three gates, one to the north, south, and then the eastern gate that Hanji came through. Now that she had her proof of citizenship, a solid gold coin with a design stamped on it, she was now able to enter and leave the inner wall without much trouble, and no one made a fuss when she left through the south gate.

It took her an hour to get to the lighthouse. The area along the southern coast contained a forest of giant evergreen trees that towered above the stone walls. There were folk legends about spirits and magical beasts lurking inside that kept the forest from being cleared, but Hanji knew the truth was that the trees were simply too large to cut down. It would take months to cut down even one. The stories kept people away, though, so Hanji didn’t meet anyone else on her trek to the coast.

“Finally!” she cheered, seeing the ocean again after climbing over a tree’s giant root. The sun had sunk beneath the horizon, but Hanji could see the cliff on which the lighthouse was perched a few yards away by moonlight. She headed for it, energy renewed by the sight of her journey’s destination.

Hanji barely remembered the lighthouse from childhood memories, and she had only seen it a couple of times at night, when the beacon could be seen. It sat on a steep cliff with a fifty or sixty foot drop, so it didn’t need to be very tall and was only five stories high. There was also a single-level building attached to the side that faced inland, and like the lighthouse, it was built of gray stone. It was built at the same time as Sina, around one hundred years ago, and looked it.

“Yeesh, place could use some fixing,” Hanji muttered, approaching the door. _‘I’ll have to look at it in the morning, check for roof leaks and stuff. Right now I just wanna sleep.’_

The door opened with the keys and Hanji was hit with a second wave of stench that day, this one musty and stale. She stepped into the darkness.

“Lamp, lamp, gimme a lamp…” She bumped into a table, knocked over a chair, and scuffed something with her boot before finally laying hands on a kerosene lantern. A quick step outside and a hand into her pack for matches got the lantern lit, revealing the inside of the keeper’s house to be small but fully furnished and cozy.

 _‘Well, this is home now,’_ Hanji sighed, and set the lantern on a small end table, which now had a giant scuff mark on one leg. A wave of mixed emotions, mostly resentment, anger, and regret, welled up within her, and she tried to stamp it back down.

“C’mon, Hans, this ain’t so bad,” she said out loud, with a weak laugh. “You even have a fireplace.”

The flame in the lantern flared a bright flash that made Hanji jump back. The flame resumed its normal size.

 _‘Great, now I have to make sure I don’t break vases **and** burn the place down,’_  Hanji thought, slapping a hand over her tired face. _‘I’m just gonna go to bed. I’ll unpack tomorrow.’_

She took her lantern and pack into the smaller of the two bedrooms of the house. While the previous keeper had passed away not by sickness, but by old age, she felt a little leery of sleeping in a dead person’s bed. The bedroom had a thin layer of dust, but Hanji had slept in worse places. She dug a wrinkled sleep shirt out of her pack, peeled her dirty one off that she’d been wearing the last two days, and turned so that she could see her back in a nearby, free-standing mirror.

The gold design on her back was still there. The parts that weren’t covered by her brassiere glinted at her in the lantern’s light.

 _‘I didn’t think it’d disappear upon entering this place,’_ Hanji thought. _‘But I had hoped it would.’_

A month ago, Hanji had fallen ill, and was bedridden for two weeks. When she was finally strong enough to stand, she found the mark on her back. It looked like a sun, and had a geometric design set in the middle. There was no texture to it; it was as if nothing was there, and felt like normal, bare skin.

 _‘Ever since I got this, weird stuff has been goin’ on,’_  Hanji mused, and fished a small book and pencil out of her pack. _‘Objects shake, sparks form from thin air, Eibringer’s vase, and now flames.’_

She jotted down a note about the lantern. It joined similar accounts of strange events, as well as her notes on her sickness. She rarely got sick — idiots rarely caught colds, her father used to laugh — and the illness wasn’t like anything she had seen. It hit out of the blue, and despite being bedridden and weak for two weeks, when it passed, she had felt as strong as ever.

“They’re connected, I know it,” Hanji mumbled, staring at the design in the mirror. A week after the illness passed, she had received the inheritance letter from a family member even her mother had apparently forgotten about, for it was the first time she had heard of being related to the lighthouse keeper.

The mystery was begging to be solved, and while she ached to do just that, she had to sacrifice her freedom and dreams in the process.

There was a clattering outside, and she jumped. _‘Forgot I’m pretty much out in the wilderness now!’_ she thought, throwing on her sleep shirt and grabbing the lantern. _‘Oh hooks, did I shut the front door? Can’t let a bear into the house.’_

Hanji walked back through the house. The front door was shut, but she stepped outside to double check, unsure if there was a wood pile that had fallen over.

‘ _Should’ve taken up Mike’s offer to keep my gear,’_ she thought. The wood pile was a covered bin. It was nearly empty, but it was summer so there was plenty of time to restock it. _‘I should’ve at least kept a sword. I could’ve used that several times now.’_

Shaking her head, Hanji turned back towards the house’s door, but a rustle nearby made her whip around. There was a sharp pain as something hard connected with the side of her head, and then there was darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading chapter 1! Comments are totally welcome, since I know this is very different from Allowance but is more aligned with what I really like to write. :D
> 
> A note about the first aid given to Hanji: According to resources online, doing Heimlich maneuver-like chest heaves like Levi did on a person who was drowning is not proper first aid, as the person could vomit and and then choke on it because their passages are blocked. Also, don't take a fanfic's word on how to save a person from drowning anyway, especially since I am not a lifeguard or certified in CPR myself. Please consult legitimate first aid resources or take a CPR course.
> 
> Like Allowance, feel free to follow me [on Tumblr](http://glitchikinnsblog.tumblr.com/), and my fic tag for this is ["fic wtwgm".](http://glitchikinnsblog.tumblr.com/tagged/fic-wtwgm) I post chapters there as well as any art I do for it, and any fan submissions I happen to get.
> 
> Many thanks to my editor, [Julystorms.](http://archiveofourown.org/users/julystorms) :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanji finds more questions than answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Link to full view of Hanji's notebook.](http://glitchikinnsblog.tumblr.com/private/110308021442/tumblr_njdufbSrVO1rzddpm)

 

Hanji coughed herself awake and gagged on the dryness of her throat. She staggered to her feet, nearly tripping in the sand, and whirled around, looking around wildly.

‘ _Where am I?’_ she thought, heart hammering in her chest. It took a couple minutes for her to calm down and see that she wasn’t in any danger. ‘ _Ugh, my mouth is caked with salt.’_

She coughed again and spat salty phlegm on the sand. She had woken up on a narrow strip of beach. Behind her was a short, rocky bluff and the giant forest. To her right was Sina’s outer wall, only a short walk away.

‘ _I’m far from home,’_ Hanji thought, and then remembered what happened at the lighthouse. ‘ _Someone hit me on the head. I remember being wet, and very cold. If I’m all the way out by the outer wall, they must have thrown me into the ocean from a boat.’_

Hanji lifted a hand to feel her head. If not for the memory of being struck, she wouldn’t have even known, for she didn’t feel any pain. The skin at the impact point was unbroken, and wasn’t even swollen

‘ _Strange. I know Ma said I was hard-headed, but this is ridiculous. Ah? Where are my glasses?’_ Hanji groaned at the realization her glasses were nowhere in sight. She had a spare in her pack at the lighthouse and she could see well enough without them, but glasses were expensive. ‘ _Ugh, let’s get out of here.’_

While Hanji estimated that dawn wasn’t too far away, the moon was still out and bright enough to see by. Hanji walked up to the bluff, then paused to look up at the top of the wall.

‘ _I don’t see any light up there. No patrolmen?’_ Hanji frowned. If she hadn’t regained consciousness, she could have laid on the beach for days, at the mercy of both tide and wild beasts. ‘ _That probably means there weren’t any witnesses, either. Figures.’_

The bluff was an easy climb, and Hanji headed north, guessing that it would take her at least an hour to walk back to the lighthouse. As she walked, she made sure to keep the ocean in sight so as to not get lost in the forest, and used the time to recount the events that led up to her waking on the beach.

 _‘I was attacked and dumped. Someone tried to kill me. Why?’_ Hanji thought. ‘ _Outsiders aren’t liked by Sina natives, but going this far? I’m not even a merchant, I’m just a lighthouse keeper! It could be revenge, but I can’t think of anyone with ties in Sina strong enough to put a hit on me.’_

She’d have to send a message to Mike, to ask if he had any potential suspects. The thought of contacting Mike made her chuckle.

‘ _Moblit’s gonna flip when he hears about this. Ah, but I can’t send it yet, I’ll have to avoid going into town for a couple of days, though I’m sure they’ll know I’m still kickin’ when I light that beacon tonight.’_

She stopped to take a breather. Dawn had arrived, and the last dark smudge of the night was fading away into lighter hues. The ocean was calm and without a boat in sight, only birds fishing for breakfast.

‘ _Someone saved me. I woke up once, probably after I was pulled out of the water,’_ Hanji thought, the memory surfacing. It was fuzzy in some places, but the image of a man leaning over her was clear enough. _‘Black hair, pale skin, no shirt, I remember that. But were there really slits on his throat?’_

She remembered seeing them because the man had been wet, and the wet edges had caught the moonlight and sparkled. She pushed her sticky bangs out of her face to rub her sweaty forehead, as if she could push the memory into focus.

‘ _He said something,’_ she recalled. ‘ _And then I saw his teeth.’_

The teeth had been sharp, not like a human’s at all.

“Ugh! I need my notes!” Hanji cried in frustration, startling a nearby bird. “I think better when I can jot it down! But if I had my notes, they’d be ruined now.” She sighed, then resumed her trek back to the lighthouse.

When it finally came into view, the sun was fully up, though Hanji couldn’t see it because the giant trees blocked the view. She squatted behind a bush, and watched the lighthouse for a few minutes. The door was closed, and she detected no signs of movement.

 _‘Looks safe enough.’_ She wrenched a branch the length of her arm free from the dirt it was lodged in. ‘ _Just in case.’_

Holding the branch in a standby position, Hanji slowly approached the lighthouse. A quick inspection confirmed that the area was deserted, even behind the building and the small, weather-beaten shed. When she circled back around to where she was attacked, she found something odd.

 _‘What’s this?’_ Hanji picked up the lantern from the top of the wood bin. _‘Someone actually made the effort to put the flame out and set it on the bin. I don’t see whatever they used to knock me out with, though. Notes!’_

The front door was still unlocked, and Hanji went inside, branch at the ready. The place was empty and undisturbed. When Hanji entered the bedroom, she found her belongings just as she left them.

 _‘I guess the goal was to just make me disappear,’_ Hanji thought, finally allowing herself to breathe freely at last. ‘ _If someone came to investigate why the beacon wasn’t lit, they’d probably assume I fell off the cliff in the dark or some nonsense and just leave it at that without investigating.’_

She picked up her notebook and pencil, and began writing furiously, starting with the events leading up to being attacked.

 _‘—heard noise, turned, was hit on the left side of head, blacked out. Vague feeling of being in water. Woke briefly, saw man leaning over me.’_  Hanji scribbled a few notes about the man’s strange appearance, face scrunched up in concentration as she squeezed every last detail out of her memory before she lost it. _‘Had several slits on side of neck, at least 2, no more than 4. Said something, can’t remember what. Saw sharp teeth. Voice odd, crackly. Sensation of being moved, then passed out again. Woke up on small beach about 20ft from Sina outer wall.’_

Hanji flipped the page and added the note about the lantern, missing weapon, and undisturbed house. Then she put the notebook down, feeling satisfied and less anxious now that the events were recorded.

“Now, let’s look around this place, shall we?” she asked herself out loud, in an attempt to dispel the mood of the night’s danger. “My tour of the house was interrupted last night, after all.”

The keeper’s house was a single-level building adjoined to the lighthouse tower. Hanji had found the two bedrooms of the house the previous evening, and as she wandered throughout the house, she encountered the other rooms. The living room had a small entry way into the dining room, which in turn had an entrance into an even smaller kitchen. There was a door in the living room, and given the layout of the house, Hanji assumed it lead to the lighthouse itself.

When she walked past her new bedroom, she found a study and a room with a closed door. Curious, she opened the door, and found it to be a bathroom.

 _‘I didn’t see an outhouse when I walked around the building earlier,’_ she thought, looking inside. ‘ _I figured maybe it was in the woods somewhere, or I just pee over the edge of the cliff—’_

Hanji’s train of thought was derailed by the sight of a claw-foot tub made of white porcelain perched next to a toilet that appeared to be flushable.

“What is this!” she exclaimed, seeing the tub. It was a bit small compared to the length of a person, but far more luxurious than the wash barrel she had expected to find later out in the shed. “Running water? In a place like this?”

Even in the city, having such amenities beyond a simple toilet was a luxury only for the wealthy, and Hanji had fully expected to make a weekly trip to a public bath.

‘ _How does this work, though?’_  she thought, studying the tub after relieving her bladder and proving that the toilet did indeed flush. ‘ _I’m no expert, but even I know there’s no way you can get fresh water all the way out here. Maybe there’s an underground reservoir nearby?’_

The tub’s pipes had a line of geometric symbols written on them. Hanji turned the spigot handle and sure enough, water poured out, brown at first until it ran clear. Next to the spigot was a small lever, and when she pulled it, the water began to run hot, making her shriek in surprise.

“Running _hot_ water?! Impossible! But there it is, and how’d it get hot so fast?!” She looked at the pipes under the sink and behind the toilet. They also had lines of the same type of pattern etched on the metal, but the pipes disappeared into the walls of the house, and she couldn’t make any more sense of their design.

“I’ll have to jot these symbols down later,” Hanji muttered, straightening up. “Let’s go check out the study, see if there are answers anywhere.”

The study looked normal enough. There were a couple of bookshelves full of dusty tomes, and a quick glance at a couple of titles hinted at a variety of subjects, from herbology to books on marine life. Hanji promised herself that she’d peer at them later. A solid wooden desk sat in front of a cheery window, with a tidy array of writing materials and another kerosene lamp, this one meant to remain in one spot as a writing lamp, perched on top of it. There was also an envelope with a wax seal.

“To Hanji, Zoë,” said the neat, flowery script.

 _‘The old man must have felt his time was near and looked my name up in the registry before passing away,’_  Hanji thought, picking up the letter. The big chair behind the desk was old and dusty, but Hanji sat on it anyway, and it creaked in protest. Using the pocket knife she had taken from her pack earlier, she pried the envelope open.

‘ _To Ms. Zo_ ë,’she read. _‘We have never met, but I hope that you are well, and that you have found this place to be comfortable if not a little worn around its edges. Please take extra caution in the rainy season; the roof is not what it used to be.’_

The letter thanked her for accepting the will, and expressed the previous keeper’s hopes that her family was well. It also said that there was a guide to maintaining the lighthouse beacon in the bookshelf. Hanji put down the letter and sighed in disappointment.

 _‘No clues about the marking on my back,’_  she thought, standing to find the book. ‘ _I guess the previous keeper didn’t know anything about it. I’ll have to search the place thoroughly later. Now it’s time to learn how to keep a lighthouse.’_

Hanji opened the door in the living room and climbed up the spiral staircase with relative ease, though she mentally gave the previous keeper some credit for being able to make the journey in his old age. The wooden steps were stained with a century’s worth of footprints, but were still solid. Hanji was beginning to respect the old building as well.

“WOW!”

She couldn’t help the loud exclamation of awe as she walked out into the glass-encased room at the top of the staircase. It had a fully circular view, and while the giant forest blocked much of it behind the lighthouse, the view of the ocean in front was gorgeous.

‘ _When I still lived here, I didn’t think much about the ocean,’_ Hanji thought, staring out over the water. ‘ _Kinda regret it now.’_

She turned around to the huge box that stood in the middle of the room. It was a little taller than Hanji, and if she wrapped her arms around it, she’d only encompass half of it. It was made of glass, but had a faceted form with angled layers notched into the top and bottom of it. While she could see through the glass to the other side, it was slightly fractured and distorted.

“Let’s see...oh, good, a diagram,” Hanji muttered, opening the guide. “This is the light room, and this big glass thing is the lens. Easy. But where’s the light source?”

She peered into the lens again. This time, she noticed a thin rod of cloudy white material.

 _‘A power stone!’_ Hanji realized. ‘ _Wow, those are rare! It’s rod-shaped, too, not an oval like I’ve seen elsewhere.’_

Hanji went downstairs one floor. The floor just below the light room, she learned, was the service room. There was a metal cylinder in the middle that extended up through the ceiling.

 _‘Bet that turns the beacon.’_ A quick check of the diagram confirmed her guess. _‘What makes the beacon turn, though? Don’t tell me I gotta crank this thing all night!’_

She circled the machinery until she found a panel next to a box. Inside the metal bin were about twenty power rods. Hanji whistled.

 _‘If I remember right, one rod can last at least a decade or two,’_ she thought. ‘ _Despite how handy they are, you only see these used in Mitras, or factories with heavy equipment. I heard they’re more widely used in other big cities, like Trost._

_‘I don’t know how they’re made, but Sina keeps real quiet about ‘em. How is it that a lighthouse of all things has two dozen just sitting in a box?’_

The panel had one switch. Across the panel’s surface were several lines of the same geometric writing she saw on the water pipes. Hanji inspected the back of it; there were  wires, gears, and some other mechanical things that likely did the actual turning of the cylinder.

 _‘This set-up is a lot like the hover gear,’_ Hanji examined the pieces of metal and wire. _‘How interesting! Could their design be connected somehow?’_

The book went on to detail the process of changing the power rod and cleaning the lens. It also included machinery maintenance, as well as the odd instruction of keeping the inscriptions on the panel and water pipes fresh and clean. A copy of the scripts were written down just in case, but the book didn’t explain the script’s purpose.

 _‘It looks like math almost, but with shapes and lines instead of numbers.’_ Hanji studied the panel one more time. They really were etched in, not written like she had thought. She sighed. _‘I came here to solve a mystery, only to find another. At least the view is nice.’_

\----------------------------

Hanji spent the afternoon cleaning herself up and taking a nap. At night, she switched on the beacon without a problem, and then made a waterproof container from materials she found in the shed outside while keeping watch for her attackers. None came, and after a power nap to recharge, she switched off the beacon at dawn and ate breakfast in the dining room.

 _‘The people who attacked me yesterday know by now that I’m still alive since I turned the beacon on, but given the way they acted, they probably won’t try anything until it’s night again,’_ she thought, munching on some smoked fish. The fish came from her pack, but the glass of water that also sat on the table had come from the kitchen sink, which she found during a second inspection of the room and used the same plumbing system as the bathroom.

_‘They were careful not to leave any clues like the weapon used on me, so secrecy is one of their priorities. But, what to do until nightfall?’_

Birds twittered outside, and the early morning light filtering in through the windows gave the room a gentle glow. Hanji stared off into space, chewing slowly and thinking about a mysterious man with a strange appearance.

 _‘I think I’ve got time for a bit of exploring at that beach!’_  she decided, shoving more fish into her mouth. ‘ _If he pulled me from the ocean, he must have seen the boat they tossed me out of from the shore. Maybe he lives nearby, in the forest.’_

His appearance suggested he had good reason to live away from prying eyes in the inner wall, but Hanji wanted to at least thank him for saving her life. In her eagerness to investigate one of her several mysteries, her leg started to bounce. When she reached over to her glass of water, it flung itself away from her hand, and tipped over the edge of the table.

“Yikes!” she cried, jumping out of her seat. “Aw great, nice start to my day _—_ a reminder that currently, I’m a freak of nature as well.”

The events were beginning to occur with less time in between them, and she wondered if the lighthouse’s presence was the cause. As Hanji learned more about what she didn’t know, a sense of dread was starting to creep into her mind, a line of thought that was beginning to seem more and more plausible.

 _‘If I **am** cursed,’_ Hanji thought, wiping up the water with a towel from the kitchen. ‘ _There’s gotta be a way to break it, somehow. I just need to find it.’_

After jotting down the newest manifestation of her weird power in her notebook, Hanji packed some crackers, a canteen of water, and her notebook container in a small bag. She also stowed her pocket knife in a boot, and locked the lighthouse on her way out.

 _‘Maybe I should buy a short sword when I **do** go into town,’_  Hanji mused as she set off along the coast. _‘Or at least a dagger. Nah, I don’t have enough money. I used up most of my savings already back in Trost. Guess I’ll have to whittle one from a branch.’_

As she walked, Hanji inspected the shoreline, while thinking on and off about various traps she could set around the lighthouse when she got back. Unlike the flat northern section of Sina’s outer territory, the southern portion’s edge was rocky, and unsuitable for docks or piers. It was riddled with cliffs and steep drops to the ocean. There was also the forest, and twice Hanji spooked a small creature in the bushes as she stomped past.

As Hanji continued her walk, the top of the outer wall was visible, but there were still no signs of activity.

 _‘Do they even patrol it at all?’_  Hanji wondered. _‘Are the waters to the south that treacherous that you can’t sail past it? Maybe I’m just seeing it between patrols...’_

About ten minutes away from the beach she woke up on, Hanji found herself walking along the top of another cliff, this one with a short drop into deep water. The area was quiet, except for the gentle splashing of waves.

 _‘Wait. I heard something.’_ Hanji stopped walking, just in time to hear an undecipherable murmur. ‘ _Is that a voice?’_

She crept closer to the edge of the cliff, doing her best to step without a sound.

“See? I don’t hear anything.”

 _‘That **was** a voice!’_ Hanji thought, holding her breath to hear better. She leaned forward over the edge to see under the lip, but the overhang was too large. ‘ _Is there a cave right here?’_

She saw the sparks at her feet just within her peripheral vision, but her center of gravity was too far forward to let her jump back. The rock under her feet crumbled, and Hanji’s weight tipped her over the edge. She had just enough time to suck in a breath before she crashed into the water below.

The water wasn’t too deep, but it was enough to prevent Hanji from hitting her head on the bottom. Salty water blinded her, and she had to fight her way to the surface. After her head surfaced, she pulled her glasses off to rub the water out of her eyes, and when she put them back on, she was faced with the point of a strange, white sword aimed between her eyes.

“Mikasa! Don’t kill her!” a voice cried.

Hanji was staring at the person holding the sword. It was a young woman, more like a teenager, with short black hair, dark eyes that were narrowed and sharp, and pale skin.

There were gills on her neck.

Hanji held in a noise of surprise; she was still at swordpoint, and didn’t want to have the sword thrust into her chest. ‘ _Gills! The man who saved me, he had **gills!** ’_

“She knows we exist,” the sword bearer said. Her voice was cool and emotionless, but it had an edge of threat to it, warning Hanji that the sword was not for show.

“Don’t mind me,” Hanji chuckled, but her eyes still didn’t leave the sword bearer’s. “Just a harmless lighthouse keeper. I’m unarmed, although I think my crackers are soggy now.”

“Ms. Hanji?” Another voice came from nearby, but Hanji didn’t dare look away to see who knew her name.

“Yes? That’s me?” Hanji confirmed. “Zoë Hanji, at your service.”

“What’s a lighthouse?” a third voice asked. Hanji recognized it as the one she heard earlier.

“It’s a tower that shines light so that ships don’t wreck on nearby rocks,” Hanji said cheerfully. “I turn the light on at sunset, turn it off at dawn, and make sure it works!”

“She won’t tell anyone about you and Eren, Mikasa,” said the other voice. “Right, Ms. Hanji?”

“Right!” Hanji chimed. “I don’t even have anyone to tell, actually. I kind of don’t have any friends around here.”

A teenage boy swam over to Mikasa and put a hand on her raised arm in an effort to make her lower the sword, but it was in vain. Her arm barely twitched, and Hanji was impressed — and further warned of her own danger.

“Please, Mikasa?” the boy pleaded. He had a messy mop of brown hair, and blue-green eyes that rivaled the ocean in color. He also had gills, but only two while Mikasa had four. “If you kill her, we won’t be able to come back here. We won’t get to see Armin anymore.”

Mikasa’s eyes flicked downward for only an instant in reaction to his words, but to Hanji’s relief, she lowered the sword, and then sheathed it under water.

“Thank you,” Hanji said, meaning it. “How about we chat? The lighthouse won’t need me until sundown, and I wouldn’t mind fixing my lack of friends. I tried to talk to the lighthouse, but rocks aren’t very chatty.”

It was a bit of a lame joke, but it made the boy laugh, which in turn made Mikasa relax a little.

“Fine,” Mikasa said. She turned to swim into the cave that Hanji had fallen in front of. Hanji saw that the skin that showed from under her sleeveless brown tunic was dark blue, and had a leathery texture. It faded into normal skin along the side of her neck, upper arms, and the sides of her ribs. The boy wore the same type of tunic, and as Hanji followed the two into the cave, she could barely make out a faded design on the back of the shirt in the shadow of the cave.

The cave looked like it continued into darkness, but off to the side near the entrance was a shelf about ten feet wide that was just above the water’s surface. On it sat a boy with chin-length blond hair and who wore clothing similar to Hanji’s, making him a Sina city dweller.

“Hi, Ms. Hanji,” he said. Behind him sat a kerosene lamp, a couple of books, and some bread and jelly. “I’m Armin. Sorry about that. You scared us.”

“I scared me, too!” Hanji said, hauling herself up on the shelf. “I was taking a walk when I fell off the cliff up there. I’m glad I didn’t crack my skull open and drown!”

“Mikasa, legs!” The other boy, who must be Eren, whispered to the girl, nudging her. Hanji snorted; his whisper was anything but that. “She has legs, too, like Armin!”

Amin laughed, but Hanji just smiled in confusion. “Yes?” she said. “I have legs?”

“Eren and Mikasa are fishmen,” Armin said, but Eren slapped the water’s surface, making it splash droplets at Armin. “Oh, excuse me. I mean merpeople.”

“Fish?” Hanji suddenly made a connection. _‘They’re still in the water. They have gills—!_ ’

She scrambled to the edge of the shelf, leaning over enough to nearly topple back into the water. Mikasa reach for her sword, but Eren laughed and leaned forward in the water. Instead of his legs floating up behind him, a tail surfaced instead.

A fish tail, complete with a fin along the top starting at his hips, and a wide tail fin. His wet scales glinted in the lantern’s light. Hanji couldn’t make out the color correctly, but it looked like the top of his tail was green while the bottom was white. There was a speckled pattern to it that almost looked like stripes. Eren, who had been floating face-down, resumed a vertical position.

“Wow!” Hanji exclaimed, barely able to keep her voice down. She whipped her head towards Mikasa, who twitched at the sudden movement. “Do you have a tail too? Can I see? Please?”

Mikasa frowned, but Eren nudged her again, and she rolled over in the water. The dark blue skin traveled down into a tail like Eren’s, but Hanji recognized it as a shark tail, even with her limited experience with fish species. It was sleek, and had a tall dorsal fin and tail like a normal shark. The underside was also white, and when Mikasa rolled back over, Hanji saw two smaller fins near her hips below a leather cloth wrapped around her waist. The sword was in a sheath that appeared to be attached to a belt.

“Oh, wow!” Hanji breathed again. “You’re fishmen!”

“Merpeople!” Eren interjected, splashing water again.

“You have gills! You can breathe underwater, then. But you’re breathing air normally right now!” Hanji leaned forward again. “Can you stay above water or underwater for long periods of time? Or do you have to go back under after a while? Can I touch your tail?”

Behind her, the lantern flared, the flame shooting up out of the flue’s open top.

Armin yelped and scrambled backwards. Hanji hissed under her breath, and managed to stop Eren from splashing water at the fire just in time.

“Stop!” she said. “Water will make it worse!”

Eren’s face was one of sudden surprise at the command, but then it turned into confusion. “But Armin said water can put out that fire stuff!” he argued.

“Not this type of fire,” Hanji explained. The lantern’s flame had died back down, but her heart was still racing. “Kerosene fire hates water, yeah, but instead of going out, it fights back, and gets bigger.”

“Oh,” Eren said, but the look on his face told Hanji that he didn’t quite understand it.

‘ _They don’t seem to know much about humans,’_ Hanji noted, then said, “Sorry about that. Weird stuff like that has been happening around me lately, and I don’t know why.”

“Is that the real reason you came back to Sina?” Armin asked. He flushed when Hanji raised her eyebrows in surprise. “S-sorry! I heard about you from my grandpa. He works for the city records building, and told me that an ex-Sina citizen came back to take over the lighthouse.”

“Ah, so _that’s_ how you knew my name,” Hanji said, and laughed as Armin’s face turned darker. “You’re right. I was born here in Sina, and my parents left when I was ten. I inherited the lighthouse recently and came back, but I also seem to have inherited this weird power that keeps freaking out on me.”

“Magic.” The word came from Mikasa, and everyone turned to look at her. “It was the same way with Connie,” she said, looking at Eren.

“That’s right!” Eren said, face lighting up. “Connie kept pricking people with some kinda energy by accident until they finally set him up with one of the old mages.”

“Magic?” Hanji asked. She had heard Mikasa just fine, but wanted to make sure regardless. “I’m using _magic_?”

“Yeah?” Eren cocked his head, brows furrowed. “Do you guys not have magic?”

Armin had turned white, and Hanji’s heart was beginning to race again.

 _‘Magic,’_ she thought, running a hand through her damp bangs. ‘ _I had hoped...I **knew** it was magic, but I thought I was cursed as the worst possible reason. But this...’_

“Our city doesn’t like magic,” Armin was trying to articulate the reason for his and Hanji’s negative reactions. “They say it’s bad, that it brings misfortune to everyone.”

“But magic is useful!” Eren said, clearly dismayed. “I mean, the old mages are all kinda stuffy and traditional, and they almost didn’t let Connie back into the Scouts, but if it weren’t for magic, we’d probably be, like, naked or something!”

Hanji contemplated this difference in views on magic, but even though her years in Sina were vaguely remembered, she couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that was instilled in her as a child.

“Ok, so this incident,” Hanji said, waving at the lantern that now burned normally. “This was caused by magic. Is there a way to control it?”

Eren nodded with enthusiasm. “Yeah! You just gotta learn how!” His bright expression drooped. “Except, neither me or Mikasa can use magic. You’d have to get another mage to teach you.”

“Mage?” Hanji questioned.

“A magic user,” Eren replied. He cringed. “And I don’t know any that we could ask for help from that wouldn’t tell the Commander on us…”

Still feeling awkward about magic in relation to herself, Hanji took the chance to switch topics. “Commander?” she asked. “Who is that?”

Eren perked up again and Hanji noticed that Mikasa, who had tensed up with Eren mentioned seeking help from others, relaxed again.

 _‘These kids are cute,’_ Hanji thought, listening to Eren chatter while Armin joined in with his own questions. ‘ _Cute, but definitely a far cry from normal. Magic, a lighthouse, fis-merpeople. What next? This just keeps getting more and more complicated.’_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, thanks for being patient! I took a little longer than planned to get this chapter out, never. Again. (Month long hiatuses do not result in quality first drafts, many thanks to July for helping me remember how to write again.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi can't sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Link to full view of Sina Lighthouse diagram](https://36.media.tumblr.com/37f01f18aaf16b2f94c0d2ebb2ee8d1b/tumblr_no48ageLIq1rzddpmo1_1280.png)  
>  Trigger warnings: Imagery of dark ocean depths, single-line mention of body horror, suicide mention

Levi woke to his heart pounding furiously in his ears and his body tingling, a sensation that happened whenever he exerted a good deal of magic. Even though his eyes were wide open, there was still darkness all around him, and he felt terrified of some unknown danger.

 _‘Where?’_ he thought, trying to get a grasp on his bearings. The darkness was beginning to fade a little into the normal dimness of the waters, but the feeling of danger was still constricting him. He inhaled sharply through his mouth, only to suck water into his lungs.

 _‘Air!’_  he thought, choking on the water. He twisted in the water, panic flooding him as he struggled to find which way was up. _‘I need air!’_

Levi clawed his way through the water towards the surface of the water after finding it. When his head breached the surface, he coughed and gagged, spitting out the water he had swallowed. For a moment, he noisily sucked in fresh air as he searched the area for potential enemies. Nothing was in the water, not even a passing fish. There was only a small flock of gannets, white birds with black-tipped wings, floating on the waves nearby while chattering amongst themselves.

 _‘There’s nothing there,’_ he realized. He tried to slow his breathing, but his heart continued to beat way too fast. He hissed in anger at the continued feeling of fear, and he slapped the water in frustration. _‘There’s nothing there. Nothing there, **again.** ’_

Levi could see land to the east, as well as the cluster of rocks in the water that signified being close to New Sina territory. Above him, the sun in the morning sky told him it was around seven or eight o’clock, yet it looked as bright as noon to him. The tingling sensation lingered in his fingertips; a quick inspection showed nothing unusual, but there was no telling what kind of magic he had cast on instinct.

 _‘This is getting ridiculous.’_  Levi slapped the water again. _‘I’ve suffered insomnia before, but this is different. Every time, I wake up the minute I start drifting off, and this time I used magic. I haven’t slept at all since that night.’_

The rescue of a sinking, unconscious woman two nights ago kept plaguing Levi’s mind. The woman herself was a mystery, sure, with her bound hands and her unexpected smile at him, but it was what Levi had been doing before he saved her. It was hard to remember as only vague flashes of images would come to mind, but he was sure he had been doing nothing at all. Just drifting, face down, in the dark ocean.

Even when he shut his eyes against the sun, the darkness behind his lids took him back to the ocean depths despite a warm breeze on his face and the sounds of birds.

 _‘And when I surfaced with her, I was well beyond the other side of the rocks,’_  Levi thought. The rocks were hard to sail past in a boat, but a person could swim through underwater gaps without problems. _‘I never go past the rocks. Sina people never come out this way, but it’s too risky to get caught.’_

The gannets took off from the water, causing a ruckus as they called to each other and flew about. Levi leaned back and floated for a while, watching them.

‘ _How long has it been?’_  he asked himself, forcing back the wistful feeling seeping into his heart that came from seeing the birds soar in a sky he could no longer enter. ‘ _It’s hard to tell time in this state, even harder without the sun. Has it been months or years since I’ve last been to Shiganshina?’_

A single gannet veered off from the group, and soon the flock followed it, like an army following its commander. Levi made a face.

 _‘Ugh, I’ll go for supplies since I’m out of some essentials.’_  He rolled over in the water, ducked under the surface, and started to swim south. As he swam, he stayed closer to the surface, and tried not to look down at the depths. ‘ _Maybe Erwin has finally croaked in that office of his. Or maybe he turned...’_

Levi didn’t finish the thought. Instead, he kept swimming, and grudgingly admitted to himself that he hoped to find the commander as he was during Levi’s last supply run to Shiganshina — nosy, bothersome, and still in possession of his human wits.

\---------

Shiganshina was once a beautiful island city in the shape of a circle. Now, it was a couple hundred feet underwater, and only a quarter of it still survived.

‘ _It **was** just a quarter, back then,’_  Levi thought as he swam towards the bright lights of the city. ‘ _It’s gotten bigger. Almost half of it is lit up now. How long **has** it been since I came back?’_

As he approached it, he tried not to look at the palace towers that rose above the city at the center of it. It was dark and some of it was in shambles, like the rest of the city left to ruins. Nearby, a couple of soldiers with white pauldrons and swords at their sides floated above the city on post. They watched him swim by, but didn’t hail him. Levi ignored them, and entered the city.

The buildings were once white with blue tiled roofs. Now they were darkened, covered in algae, and in some cases, missing chunks of walls and roofs. However, Levi noticed that there was an absence of debris in the streets and homes, and that people, fish-human hybrids like him, were swimming about with a cheery atmosphere that reminded Levi with a twinge of pain of Shiganshina before the Fall. Magic stones set in lamp posts gave light to the city, and if it wasn’t for the citizens having fish parts below their waists, Levi could have pretended he was simply strolling Shiganshina at night while on patrol, and everything was fine.

_‘But nothing is fine.’_

As Levi made it to street level, he passed some citizens and heard them whisper to each other. Their mouths weren’t moving, since merpeople communicated via projected thoughts due to some strange effect of the magic that transformed them, something that Levi could never get used to since he relied heavily on facial expressions to read people. The ability was convenient since speaking underwater out loud would have been near impossible, almost _too_ convenient, but Erwin merely told Levi not to dwell on it since being unable to communicate underwater would have made recovery from the Fall much harder.

 _‘If this **was** back then,’_  Levi mused, coming close enough to hear a woman whisper something about him being naked while covering a child’s eyes. _‘I would have to arrest myself for public indecency.’_

He had forgotten to stop at his little cave — he refused to call it “home”, he didn’t deserve such a thing — for a waist cloth.

 _‘I don’t know why they insisted on these things, everything stays hidden until it’s needed,’_ Levi grumbled to himself as he procured such a garment from a kindly old woman outside a tailor shop who gave it to him for free. The woman had a thick plating of silver scales covering her arms and back that led in a large tail flecked with spots. She didn’t ask him any questions, just grinned a toothy smile at him.

One of the teeth was long and pointed.

Levi held back a shudder, thanked the woman, and wrapped the thin leather cloth around his waist, hooking two little loops of string around the small fins that jutted out near where his groin would have been so that it wouldn’t ride up. Properly attired, he left the old woman, though the cloth didn’t prevent some staring as Levi continued towards a large compound.

He chalked it up to his long absence. Most of them wouldn’t know what Captain Levi looked like anymore, though they would surely know the name.

The scouting Legion compound looked the same as it had during Levi’s last visit. It remained intact, and had been kept clean of algae. When the city sank, it was one of the few large buildings that didn’t crumble, and Commander Erwin had made sure that the military stayed just as solid during the disaster. When the civilians had woken up underwater and were no longer fully human, the Legion compound had served as a refuge until the area was safe to live in again.

‘ _I don’t think any of us slept back then,’_  Levi thought, though it didn’t make his current fatigue feel any lighter. The compound looked peaceful, and only had a few scouts milling about in front of it. Levi knew that the training grounds in the yard behind it would be noisy with young recruits being trained. A sliver of pride for the resilience the group had shown over the decades wormed its way into Levi’s heart, and he even saluted the soldiers outside with his right fist clenched over his heart. To their credit, they saluted back snappily, although with confused expressions at what appeared to be a civilian saluting them. Levi chuckled and entered the compound.

Inside, there was more activity. Soldiers swam about; one was issuing orders to a pair that looked fresh out of training, there was a cluster of them poring over the board on a wall that held a list of assignments, and Levi nearly collided with another one that was clutching a handful of papers.

“Yo, watch it!” the young soldier snarled. Like the whispering civilians, his mouth didn’t open and form the words, but his face expressed his annoyed emotion with clear contortions of his mouth. He swam off, almost clipping a stunned Levi with his silvery tail fin.

 _‘I’m gonna have to tell Erwin his brats had better learn some manners or I’ll whip ‘em into shape myself,’_  Levi seethed as he swam down a corridor. ‘ _I’ll leave them so weak in the knees and so sore that they won’t be able to feed themselves.’_  He paused his line of thought. ‘ _No. Better not. He’d **want** me to stay.’_

Levi entered a small office. Gone were the rugs and paintings that used to adorn it; instead, there were a couple of woven squares featuring complex geometric patterns in black and white chips. Erwin’s assistant, a middle-aged man that Levi didn’t recognize, floated by a desk, writing diligently with a thick, black stick. One of the first things Erwin had the few mages that survived the Fall create was a waterproof writing utensil. Ever efficient and organized, Erwin loved his lists and records.

“The commander is busy, sorry,” the assistant said without looking up.

Levi’s mood soured further. “Tell him that Levi wants to see him.”

The firmness of his voice made the assistant look up. “Levi who?” he asked, unbothered by Levi’s annoyed tone. “I said he’s busy. Please come back around midday tomorrow.”

Levi lunged forward, grabbing the collar of the assistant's leather vest that marked him as a scout and pulling him forward. “Tell him that _Captain_ Levi wants to see him _now,_ ” he growled, making sure the man was able to count every one of Levi’s sharp teeth that lined his bottom jaw.

“Levi! Your first visit in years and you’ll hug my assistant and not me?”

Levi released his grip on the assistant and turned to look at Erwin, who floated in the doorway that connected the assistant’s office to his own. Erwin had been a big man when he still had legs, and only got bigger when a blue and white tail replaced them. There were a few more light lines in the man’s face, but his piercing blue eyes were still sharp, and his blonde hair was the same as always — longer on top, and shaved short on the sides. A military style.

“Come, let’s catch up,” Erwin said, nodding his head towards his office. To his assistant, he said, “Make sure no one bothers me until we’re done.”

Levi followed Erwin into his office. Before the Fall, Erwin was only a squad leader, but the previous commander was sent to Sina just before the city sank. Erwin, the only soldier of high enough rank that wasn’t dead or out of their wits, had taken command. Levi didn’t know what became of old Keith; they assumed he and the rest of his men sent onshore were killed in the tsunami that took out Sina when Shiganshina sank.

It didn’t make much difference. Even before the Fall, Erwin was known to be next in line for commander. Levi would never tell the man outright, but he was grateful Erwin had survived. The way Shiganshina was now would never have been possible without the man’s intelligence, and his dedication to the city had been proven time and time again. The stump of his right arm was proof enough of his personal sacrifice for the city’s well-being. Levi noticed Erwin had wrapped it in fish skin, a sign that it was bothering him with phantom aches.

“What happened to Ilse?” Levi asked, shutting the door. “You fire her?”

Erwin didn’t reply at first. Instead, he studied Levi for a bit. Finally, he said, “Ilse passed on, Levi. She’s been dead for about ten years now.”

Levi shut his mind’s public thoughts off, keeping his startled noise to himself. Ilse had only been around twenty years old when he last visited. He looked away from Erwin. “How long have I been gone this time?” he asked.

“Around thirty years,” Erwin answered.

Levi let it sink in. He had known there would be a chance of it being a few years, maybe even a decade, but three decades?

“There’s only five of us Old Ones left,” Erwin said. He ticked them off on his remaining hand. “You, me, Ness, Clarice, and Auruo.”

“And Luke?” Levi asked.

“He turned feral. Just a couple years ago, actually. We found him about a mile from the city when we noticed he didn’t report in, but it was too late. He was gone.” Erwin gave Levi a moment to digest the information. “We’ve been keeping an eye on Ness. He was hit pretty hard when Luke vanished. Clarice will be fine, with such a large family to keep up with.”

Levi sighed. Of the survivors after the Fall, a handful of soldiers lived well beyond the normal lifespan of the others, and appeared to not age at all. Citizens had taken to calling them “Old Ones”. If it had been thirty years since Levi’s last visit, that meant the Fall was nearly a century ago, but both Levi and Erwin still looked like they were in their prime.

They could still feel the days pass by, but they couldn’t feel them add up into months and years. Some couldn’t cope with the reality of watching their loved ones grow old and pass on, and committed suicide. Others, like Luke, became feral without warning. Their minds and body became swallowed by the fish half of them, and they took on the basic instincts of a fish. It was irreversible; not even the strongest healing magic could bring their minds back.

And it wasn’t just the Old Ones. Even before Levi’s exile, there had been searches for a missing civilian or child from time to time, only to find them swimming alone out in the ocean, covered in scales and no longer responding to human words.

“I talked to Auruo recently,” Erwin said, breaking into Levi’s thoughts and making him twitch. One of the things Levi hated about mental communication was the way it made Erwin sound like he was right inside Levi’s head. “He’s fine. A bit quieter, but wishes more kids would dare each other to sneak into the palace. He said he enjoys scaring them right back out.”

“I only need a few things,” Levi interrupted, annoyed at the mention of Auruo. “A couple of stones, some fat, string, that sort of thing.”

“Of course,” Erwin said, nodding and accepting the change of topic. He took a pen and a slip of paper out of his desk. The paper was something else he got the mages to invent in order to withstand the watery environment. It was thick, made of bone and plant paste, and had a line of spell writing on each sheet to keep it from deteriorating. “Take this to the supply room. They’ll give you what you need.”

Levi grunted. “Still refusing to let me barter, I see.”

“And I’ll tell you again,” Erwin chuckled. “This is your payment for your service as Captain, Levi.”

Levi took the paper, snatching it with a bit more force than necessary. He had tried multiple times to retire or resign his position as Captain, but each time, Erwin had claimed the requests had never reached his office. He turned towards the door, preparing to leave for the supply room.

“Levi,” Erwin said.

Levi stopped. His name had sounded soft, no longer carrying Erwin’s perpetual tone of fake cheer and pretend smiles.

“You’ve changed again.” Erwin drifted to Levi’s side, gently shutting the door that Levi had begun to open.

Levi was sure that Erwin could hear his heart pounding, and the water felt colder than before. “Where?” he asked. _‘Last time, it was my teeth. But I haven’t noticed anything different this time!’_

“Your eyes,” Erwin replied. His expression was grim, his mouth a thin line. “They used to be gray, or blue, but now they’re black, and reflect light. Like a cat’s eyes turning green in the dark.”

Levi reached up and felt around his eyes carefully with his fingers. There was no pain, not like when his bottom teeth suddenly fell out while he was sleeping and the sharp ones ripped through his gums. “I think I'm more sensitive to light now,” he said, recalling his earlier reaction to the morning sky.

Erwin rubbed the nub of his arm, a thinking habit formed after losing the limb. “Has anything else happened that was strange?” he asked. “Aside from vanishing for thirty years and coming back just to harass my assistant?”

“No,” Levi responded, pulling open the door. He pushed the night where he rescued a sinking woman out of his mind, lest Erwin read it. “Goodbye, Erwin.”

He left the office, hoping it wouldn’t be the last goodbye. Then he got his supplies and left for his cave, away from Erwin, from the stares of civilians, and from the dark palace in the middle of the city.

\---------

Mikasa stirred as she slowly woke up and opened her eyes. She was tangled up in another warm body, and surrounded by a nest of soft strips of kelp that was just as warm and cozy. Eren snored softly from somewhere by her stomach, the vibrations making her smile. She closed her eyes again, unwilling to get up, but after a moment, she gently wiggled her way out of Eren’s clutches. He made a grunting noise, but didn’t wake.

 _‘Aunt Carla must have left already,’_  Mikasa thought, seeing the other empty nest in the room. She stretched her arms and tail, rolling over in the water as she felt her hazy brain clear and her tail tingle. She then pulled off her thin shirt, a sleeveless cloth made of clingy fish skin, and replaced it with the leather scout vest and a waist cloth. A dark red bracer came next, and Mikasa laced it up her left wrist with practiced, deft motions.

Ready for the day, she left Eren to swim through the small house, and on her way to the kitchen, Mikasa passed a room that was closed. As far as she knew, the door to Dr. Jaeger’s medical room would stay shut forever. She ignored it without thinking about it. In the tiny kitchen, there was a weighted container sitting on the counter, and she approached it with dread.

‘ _Kilti balls again,’_ she sighed, bubbles blowing out of her gills as she opened it. Inside were small balls of seaweed. Mikasa knew there were fish chunks and kilti chips packed inside the ball. Eren liked the flavor of the spicy chips, but Mikasa didn’t. She took one out anyway, and ate a bite.

‘ _Don’t complain,’_  she reminded herself, cringing at the sharp taste of the flakes. ‘ _Aunt Carla works hard at the factory and gets up early to make us breakfast and lunch before she leaves. Be grateful.’_

It didn’t keep the sadness from seeping into her thoughts. She missed the days when she helped Carla in the kitchen. Eren would float nearby, chattering about whatever tales he had heard from soldiers, and then Carla would scold him for pestering them. Carla didn’t have to work in the factory making goods like the kilti chips in Mikasa’s breakfast, and Dr. Jaeger would still be home, and—

A yawn interrupted her thoughts, and Mikasa guiltily shoved the rest of her kilti ball in her mouth, making sure her private thoughts stayed private.

“G’mornin, Mikasa,” Eren said, entering the kitchen. He had changed into his own uniform, and a matching red bracer was on his left arm. “You’re up before me for once.”

Mikasa picked up the container and offered it to Eren. “Aunt Carla left us kilti balls again,” she said.

Eren’s eyes lit up, and he eagerly took two out of the bowl. “I hope she stays on the kilti rotation for a while,” he said, cramming a whole one in his mouth. “We’ve never had so many chips for cooking before!”

“Chew more before you swallow,” Mikasa chided him. She stowed the remaining kilti balls in a pocket in her waist cloth. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yup,” Eren replied, stuffing the other ball into his face. He chewed longer this time. “We’re on patrol in section C-7 today, right?”

Mikasa nodded. “And for the next two days. But then we’re back to patrolling C-8 for two days.”

Eren’s grin took up most of his face, making her smile a little in return. The area around Shiganshina was divided into three rings and eight sectors. scouts, usually the younger soldiers like them, rotated on patrol in each section. C-8 was the section closest to Sina, where Armin lived.

“Do you think he’ll bring Ms. Hanji again?” Eren asked as they shut the door to the house. “She’s weird, but I like her.”

Mikasa made a vague hand motion in response. When they visited Armin the day before yesterday, Armin had brought the strange woman with him.

“I’m helping her search the lighthouse for clues about her powers,” Armin had explained. “I think we can trust her. She’s a good person.”

They had spent the time answering Hanji’s never-ending questions. Mikasa was amazed Hanji could still breathe for all the talking she did. The woman was interested in the strangest things; she asked about what merpeople ate, how they slept, how big Shiganshina was, and how merpeople functioned in daily life. When Eren and Mikasa demonstrated underwater communication, Hanji fell into the water of the cave in her excitement.

 _‘I’ll try to trust her,’_ Mikasa thought as she and Eren set off for the Legion compound. _‘But, only because Armin said we could, and I’ll keep my eye on her.’_

The paths between the rows of houses and stores were filled with people going to the two factories in the city to work, or to their shops to start their businesses for the day. Mikasa knew that at the same time, people were also swimming outside of the city towards the farms that grew kelp and other edible plants, like the reeds that were made into kilti chips.

 _‘That would have been us, if Eren hadn’t joined the scouting Legion,’_ Mikasa mused. Carla had been against it, because the ocean held plenty of dangers even if titans hadn’t been seen in over sixty years. The pay wasn’t very high either, but it was steady, and Carla eventually caved and agreed that the occupation was a good match for Eren’s energy and intense desire to explore.

And, being a scout led them to Armin.

“Hey Connie!” Eren called to another soldier as they approached the compound.

“Ugh, you are _way_ too happy this early in the day, as always,” groaned Connie. Connie wore the same uniform, and had a yellow bracer on his left arm. He had closely shaved hair, and despite his shorter length in body overall, his green and yellow tail was strong and thick until it tapered off into a brown, slender fin. “I really don’t understand how you can be so excited for another patrol in the north, Eren.”

“What, have the C-1 and C-2 sectors finally gotten more exciting?” Eren snorted through his mouth, an issue of bubbles with a soft gargle accompanying it.

Connie waved his hands up and out. “Nothin’ ever happens out that way,” he said. “Trust me, if something did, you’d know. Lately I’ve just been practicing my magic and even that gets boring, especially since I’m stuck with Thomas for patrols. All _he_ wants to do is study the reefs.”

“When do you think they’ll let us join the sector 5 and 4 patrols?” Eren asked. “Even if it’s just in the A ring, there’s bound to be more action out there in the south.”

Mikasa noted that Eren didn’t sound as wistful as he used to when he complained about the northern patrols. Being switched to a different area would mean separation from Armin, after all.

“When your scales start fallin’ off, probably,” Connie said. “Let’s go sign in, I’ve been late twice this week already and you know how Leader Iola loves her tardiness punishments. I still have a day’s earnings on her using her downtime to concoct new ones for us, because I’ve yet to have the same one twice.”

“You mean punishments for _you_ ,” Eren said, laughing and creating more bubbles. “You should just get your dad to wake you up when he heads out to the farms.”

“But that’s so _early_ …” Connie moaned, and the three continued towards the compound.

The doors to the Legion compound were wide open, and a couple of soldiers chatted by the door. Mikasa, Eren, and Connie saluted them as they swam by the pair. Both soldiers wore white pauldrons made from the shoulder bones of large fish or small whales, and both had a sword strapped to their left and right hips, a sign that they were part of the forces that patrolled the outer sectors in the southwest, the most dangerous area of the Shiganshina perimeter.

‘ _I hope we don’t leave the north patrols for a long time,’_  Mikasa thought. _‘I don’t want to stop visiting Armin.’_

“Yo, watch it!”

Mikasa saw a scout nearly collide with a pale civilian that had a dark brown tail and only wore a waist cloth. Eren and Connie moved in front of the oncoming scout as he headed towards the compound entrance, and Mikasa sighed for a second time that morning.

“What’s the hurry, Jean?” Eren said, arms crossed. “Trying to beat your record of how many tails you can kiss before lunch?”

“Shut it, Eren,” Jean retorted, coming to stop in front of them. “You’re just jealous ‘cuz _I’m_ not stuck on boring patrols like you.”

“Ha! It’s way more interesting than running errands for lazy city officials!” Eren said, brushing off Jean’s dig with a waved hand.

“Whatever, keep growing barnacles out there for all I care.” Jean turned to Mikasa and his swagger turned into a flirty smile. “Good morning, Mikasa. You look radiant, as always.”

“Good morning, Jean,” Mikasa replied. Behind Jean, Eren was heard making a gargled vomiting noise. “Eren, we’re gonna be late.”

Jean swore quietly and shoved Connie out of his way. “So am I, thanks a lot, guys!”

“Later, Tail Kisser!” Connie called after him.

A quick look at the assignment board in the compound main hall confirmed that today, Eren and Mikasa patrolled section C-7. After reporting in to their squad leader, they went to the supply room to check out the sword, compass, and time piece for the patrol. As Mikasa strapped the sword belt around her waist, she caught a glimpse of a brown tail across the room. It was the civilian Jean had swam into, but now he had a supply pack slung across his back. It wasn’t unusual to see a civvie in the compound or the supply room, but something about him still seemed odd.

“Might as well head out now,” Eren said. “There really isn’t anything out in C-7, but who knows, maybe we’ll find something interesting today that we can bring back.”

Mikasa nodded. A patrol scouted the area for signs of danger and food sources, and got a small reward if they found something useful to the city. Finding resources like mineral deposits was a rare occurrence, but Eren’s optimism was infectious and he was never in short supply of determination.

“Excuse me, scouts Eren and Mikasa, right?”

Commander Erwin drifted towards them as they entered the main hall. They quickly saluted him, and the sound of Eren’s fist thumping his chest too hard in excitement over the commander speaking to them was audible even through the water. The commander smiled at his enthusiasm.

“At ease. I’m changing your patrol duty for today,” he said. “I’d go into detail, but I have to make this quick, or you’ll lose sight of your target.”

“Yes, sir!” Eren responded eagerly. scouts served as the defense force of the city by default, but also branched off into the city police. Eren and Mikasa were aiming for promotions to the defense forces while Jean and Connie were aiming for police, but occasionally the duties would overlap as needed.

“You’ve been reassigned to follow and track the person that just left the supply room. He has a brown tail, short black hair, and you’ll know him by the look of disgust on his face when he spots you,” Erwin said. “When you find him, engage in conversation as the situation seems fit, but only enough to learn the status of his well-being. Take note of any odd behaviors or physical features. Then, return and report directly to me, and only me. My assistant will expect you.”

“Are we to expect any violence, sir?” Mikasa spoke up. She had excelled in hand-to-hand combat like any other field of training, but if it put Eren at risk, she needed to be prepared.

“Don’t worry, he’ll be all bark and no bite once he knows you’re just scouts,” Erwin replied, chuckling through his nose. At Eren’s open look of confusion, he added, “Just an old expression. He won’t harm you.”

“Who are we pursuing, sir, if we’re allowed to ask, sir?” Eren asked.

“Captain Levi,” the commander replied. There was a ghost of a smirk on his lips as he saluted them. “Dismissed!”

Eren and Mikasa flipped over and immediately shot towards the compound entrance. Outside, there was no sign of the man with a pack.

“Let’s get above the city,” Mikasa said, and they swam upwards until they were well above the Legion compound. She could just make out a form in the distance; he was fast. “He’s heading north, and he’s quick. Let’s go.”

At first, the man was easy to keep in sight. When they passed a line of tethered, air-filled bags indicating the threshold between A ring and B ring, Mikasa checked the compass, and saw that they were heading north in sector 7. Behind her, she could almost feel Eren’s excitement emanating from him, and she knew he was only silent so as to not tip off their target.

 _‘Is this really **the** Captain Levi?’_ she thought, staring through the dark waters at the man ahead of them. _‘He hasn’t been seen in decades, way before we were even born. They said he was probably dead or feral by now.’_

Every child knew of Captain Levi, the hero of Shiganshina. Like Commander Erwin, he was an Old One, one of the soldiers who were there when Shiganshina was cursed and sank beneath the ocean.

 _‘Why is he living outside the city?’_  Mikasa wondered, but she turned her focus back to the pursuit as they passed the border into C ring. _‘Is he picking up speed?’_

Mikasa wasn’t just strong, she was also fast; few trainees could best her in a race. But while Eren wasn’t half bad at speed himself, she would lose him if she pursued Levi at her full speed. Frustration gnawed at her; she wanted to feel her tail beating the water behind her with powerful strokes, to catch up and overtake the stranger ahead.

Then, just as they passed the boundary line indicating the edge of Shiganshina territory, Levi was gone.

Mikasa slowed, and Eren drifted to her side as they searched the dark depths. There were rock formations below, and a few fish swam by, ignoring the pair. Without words, Mikasa signaled to Eren to follow as she slowly approached swam down and approached a large cluster that appeared to have man-sized openings. There was nothing but silence, just the occasional soft puffs coming from her gills as they filtered air from the water she took in.

She saw a flash of light from a nearby cave entrance. At a wave of her hand, Eren waited as she put a hand on her sword and slowly began to propel herself down to get to a good enough angle to get a peek inside the cave.

“Ah!” Mikasa let out a startled cry as a strong vibration rippled through her. She twisted in the water, trying to break free from the invisible grasp on her body. The feeling didn’t hurt, but she tingled everywhere, and try as she might, she couldn’t move her arms or tail aside from her struggling.

“Mikasa!” Caution abandoned, Eren swam towards her, but before she could yell a warning, a flash of blue broke out between them.

“Eren!” Mikasa cried, blood running cold with panic. Her vision was filled with spots, like when she stayed outside Armin’s cave and then went back inside the darkness. “Eren!”

There was no response. Her heart hammered in her ears, and she fought to move her arms against the invisible bonds. When the spots cleared, Eren wasn’t in front of her.

  
“Eren! Eren! _EREN!’_ ”


End file.
